


svefn-g-englar

by legdabs (scvlly)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, literally...... it's just fluff, the title means sleepwalkers in icelandic it's not written in icelandic lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-09 09:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13478574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scvlly/pseuds/legdabs
Summary: it’s hard to know that you can never hold your lover’s hand when you leave the house. luckily, dan and phil have come up with a solution, in the form of starlit walks through their city in the early hours of the morning.





	svefn-g-englar

Sometimes, after two AM, when it’s an especially clear night and Phil can see the stars from the windows of their flat, he’ll ask Dan if he’s awake, and if he’d like to go for a walk.

Sometimes, Dan will say yes.

 

* * *

 

When he does, Phil will nod, and pull on some warm clothes and a thick coat as Dan does the same. He’ll plan where to take them - they’ve been on late night trips to Little Venice and Hampstead Heath before, and once they went stargazing with an armful of blankets and a telescope borrowed from Martyn in Regent’s Park.

But most nights take them onto the streets of central London, at a time when the last drunken stragglers are crawling into cabs and the pavements are otherwise almost completely empty. The bizarre quiet to be found in the capital feels just off enough that it’s as though the caution that they usually exercise when they’re out in the world somehow just doesn’t apply any more. 

 

* * *

 

Tonight is one of those nights when Dan says yes.

Phil’s layered two pairs of mismatched socks under his most sensible shoes and he’s not ashamed to say that beneath his jumper he’s wearing a long-sleeved undershirt _and_ a t-shirt, then his space coat on top. He hopes that Dan has been as sensible - it is January, after all, and the absence of clouds in the sky means it’ll be even colder than normal.

“Ready to go?” he asks when Dan emerges from their bedroom, scarf tightly wrapped around his neck and gloved hands firmly pressed into his pockets. He already looks cold, and they’re still in their centrally-heated apartment.

“Mhmm. Did you call the Uber?”

“Yep. Five minutes away,” Phil tells him, chuckling lightly as Dan settles beside him on the sofa, swinging his feet onto the other end, and leaning into Phil’s side to watch as the dot of the car moves slowly closer to where they wait. 

 

* * *

 

Their Uber driver is mercifully quiet, speaking only to greet them and check their destination.

“Westminster Bridge, right?”

“Yeah, on the south bank if possible,” Phil nods, shutting the door behind himself.

The rest of the journey passes in relative silence, broken only by the car’s radio quietly playing songs with soft melodies that sound as though they were made to be listened to at this time of the morning, with fingers curled together in the middle of the back seat as empty streets rush by.

“Is here okay?” the driver asks, pulling over just before the bridge. The roads are practically empty, and Phil is grateful that he’s not had to find somewhere to park properly to let them out.

“It’s great, thank you,” Dan responds and climbs out of the car, closely followed by Phil who adds his own thanks as he crawls across the seats.

The driver holds up a hand before driving off again, leaving Dan and Phil alone on the pavement.

“I hope you’ve planned a direction?” Dan teases.

“This way,” Phil tells him, taking his hand and jogging needlessly across the empty road, then down some steps that take them onto the pedestrianised area by the river. They walk shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, and none of the very few people they pass pay them any amount of attention at all.

For now, in this moment, they are just two unexceptional boys in love, chasing their own shadows in the warm light cast by antiquated street lights.

Phil wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

* * *

 

They’ve easily been walking for over an hour by now. They’d passed the Shrek Adventure, where Dan needed to be persuaded that he actually didn’t need to take a selfie outside of the entrance; the London Eye, lit tonight in a subtly shifting gradient of purples; and the National Theatre, where they’d sat for a few minutes on a cold concrete block and Phil had pulled out a small bag of Starmix, and Dan had kissed him because he was a genius and it was, as he protested when Phil couldn’t help but laugh, the morally right thing to do.

They’re finally on Dan’s favourite part of the Southbank, and at this time of night, it’s a top contender for his favourite spot in London. There’s a small avenue of trees whose branches are draped with blue fairy lights that give off just enough of a glow to light the way, and because there’s no-one around, he can take his time wandering through with his head tilted back, admiring the way the stars peek through from beyond the bare branches, undaunted by the lights already strung across the trees. Phil’s hand in his is warm enough that he’s taken off one of his gloves, and Dan lets himself be guided by his boyfriend’s careful touch as his mind wanders to thoughts of the universe instead of where he’s putting his feet.

All too soon, the trees are gone, and they move to walk beside the river as they draw nearer to the OXO Tower. Eager to be away from the artificial light shining in the covered area at its base, Dan urges Phil even closer to the water.

That’s when he sees it. A jetty he’s never noticed before, stretching into the water, so far out of the light of the shore that Dan can’t see where it ends.

He _has_ to get a closer look.

Dan tugs Phil’s sleeve, leads him up a couple of steps, and onto the jetty. It’s illuminated just enough by the lights outside the OXO Tower that they can see that the floor is made of very dark wooden slats, but that dim light soon fades and they find themselves walking in total darkness out into the river.

There could very well be a broken or missing plank and they could fall and do some serious damage, but there’s something about the night that makes turning on a phone torch feel too wrong and intrusive, that the risk is worth taking. The city lights itself around them with unnecessarily bright building exteriors and an abundance of street lamps, but this forgotten limb reaching into the river isn’t quite so privileged; or perhaps it’s fortunate to have escaped.

As they reach the end of the platform, enclosed on all sides and at its end by metal barriers, the sound of their feet ceases to disturb the night and the silence becomes increasingly loud. The heart of London where they now stand, which is usually bustling, has been silenced completely by nothing but the hour. The regular lapping of water beneath them is the only thing keeping Dan grounded: without it, he could shut his eyes and be anywhere on the damn planet, instead of here, in his city, at a little before four in the morning.

It feels like a contradiction to feel so at peace here, standing above the brown waters of the Thames and surrounded by the illuminated image of London with which they are so familiar, and yet be so far removed from its usual busy humanity.

As he leans into Phil, pressing his back to his chest, he can’t help but feel that perhaps the city has emptied out just for them, that it felt they deserved a long moment like this to be together in the middle of an absent crowd.

Phil wraps Dan inside his open coat, the furred hood tickling his ears as he asks, “What’re you thinking?”

“I don’t really know,” Dan replies, because he’s not really sure how to articulate anything right now, never mind what his mind is trying to express.

Phil hums quietly, nonplussed, and rests his head on Dan’s shoulder so that they stand quite literally cheek to cheek, gazing out at the buildings on the other side of the river.

“Are you happy?” Phil’s chin digs into his collarbone a little as he speaks, so close to Dan’s ear that the younger boy can’t help but shiver.

It’s a bit of a loaded question that seems to come from nowhere and Dan doesn’t know if he means right now or in his life as a whole, but it doesn’t matter, because he means it in every single way that Phil could choose to interpret when he says, “Yeah, I am,”.

Maybe not every day is as good as he’d like it to be. Maybe sometimes he forgets to _feel_ just how happy he really is. But beneath that temporarily darkened surface, it’s true. Right now, with Phil, he’s happier than he’s ever been.

“Good,” Phil kisses his cheek and tightens the coat around them both, and Dan doesn’t try to stop the blush or the fond smile that creep onto his features, or the way his heart leaps when Phil tells him what he already knows:

“So am I.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this is based on ~real life~ - there are little jetty things along the southbank and they go out a little way into the river and they look pretty boring in the light of day but honestly one of my favourite things is to walk out into the river at 3am in the centre of london because it really is completely silent and a bit surreal. liminality at its finest.
> 
> the title is from the song by sigur ros, and it translates as ‘sleepwalkers’. you should definitely give it a listen if you’re after something chill.
> 
> hope you enjoyed!
> 
> come find me on tumblr @legdabs


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